Should You Drink? The Surprising Facts About Alcohol & Muscle Growth

You’ve probably heard that alcohol calories will make you fat and that beer causes beer bellies. You may have heard that alcohol consumption negatively affects your metabolism and testosterone production, or even that it hampers protein synthesis. You might also be thinking this is nutrionazi Shane ordering you to vacate the bar. If you knew me better you’d know otherwise—being a beast is about enjoying life, not raining on peoples’ parades. If I wasn’t too busy dancing my glutes off at a rock ‘n roll show—beer in hand, I’d be the one at the bar telling you that you don’t need to worry about a few shots of vodka or a hearty glass of scotch.

That might sound strange coming from the guy telling you to put down the cupcake and stick to the steak, but the facts on alcohol consumption back up my lack of concern for the state of your shredded abs while having a drink with your friends. Most of the hype surrounding the negative effects of alcohol are exaggerated, avoidable or just plain wrong.

B-b-but the experts say that I can only have a couple drinks a week or my results will be significantly diminished! Yes, a lot of bloggers and hardcore fitness dudes say exactly that, and some of them may even be very intelligent and muscular pillars of health. This information seems legitimate because of all those guys that are rockin’ really unattractive beer bodies. Yet you’ve probably seen incredibly fit guys prancing around the bar with their biceps flexed thinking they’re God’s gift to the ladies—and they may have been incredibly drunk at the time! (why else would they be prancing around like that?) So how do we solve this conundrum?

I say turn to the research. When mainstream media fails us, it’s time to dig into the studies a little deeper.

First, some basic facts about alcohol:

A) There are lots of different types of alcohol, and the type we drink is called ethanol. It’s formed from the fermentation of dense carbohydrates (wheat, corn, potatoes, grapes, etc) and during that process transforms into a new kind of macronutrient: alcohol. It’s a non-essential nutrient, so total abstinence isn’t bad for our bodies, just our parties.

B) It weighs in at 7 calories per gram. Carbs and protein weigh in at 4, while fat weighs in at 9. This makes alcohol a fairly dense little demon. It’s also consumed in liquid form, which makes it incredibly light on the appetite. This means that we can consume a lot of calories quite effortlessly. Not a big deal for us ectomorphs, but for the beefy boys this is bad news.

C) Similar to protein, alcohol results in a lot of thermogenesis. As you may already know, people with high protein diets burn more calories and produce more heat. This also happens with alcohol consumption. Whiskey really will keep you warm—go figure. This somewhat negates the fact that alcohol packs a heavy punch calorically.

D) Regular alcohol consumption seems to positively affect insulin sensitivity. (study, study) This is where stuff gets really interesting, because this allows your body to direct calories away from fat storage during your day to day life. This is potentially why regular alcohol consumption is associated with longer lifespans and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. I should point out that this is for people who regularly consume reasonable amounts of alcohol, not for the guys who have 20 shots in a row once a month (those guys put most of the calories in the toilet).

E) Alcohol is absorbed throughout our entire gastrointestinal tract (GI) and the rate at which it’s absorbed is affected by how much food we have hanging out in there. Alcohol gets immediate processing priority though, because our liver loves to use alcohol as fuel. It’s nearly impossible for alcohol itself to be stored as fat because our liver is incredibly good at metabolizing it and terribly inefficient at converting it into fatty acids. Fat gains from alcohol calories, if any, will be very very negligible. I wouldn’t worry about it at all.

F) Alcohol suppresses fat oxidation. This means that your body is much more likely to store fat, as it can’t be oxidized away. Luckily the alcohol won’t be converted into any significant amount of fatty acids, so this isn’t necessarily a problem—unless you’re also eating a cupcake.

G) There’s an enzyme called liver alcohol dehydrogenase (LADH) that limits the amount of ethanol we can oxidize. A typical 155 pound man can oxidize one “drink” per hour. One drink is classified as 15g of ethanol, and that works out to be 1.5 shots (vodka, whiskey, tequila, etc), a pint of beer (one bottle), or a 5oz glass of wine. You would legally be considered drunk after four of them in an hour. That’s the equivalent of 6 shots of vodka, 4 pints of beer, or 4 small glasses of wine.

H) You feel nauseous if you over-drink because alcohol produces toxic byproducts called acetaldehyde and acetate. These are, in a sense, anti-alcoholism toxins, because in small quantities these toxins produce negligible effects, but in large quantities they cause you to want to avoid alcohol in the future. Sadly, these byproducts interact negatively with Tylenol, and thus you risk damaging your liver if you try and cure your hangover with it.

I) You may wonder why alcohol makes you sleepy, and then oversleep, and then remain tired the next day. This is due to the release of the inhibitor gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which makes it easier to fall asleep, but harder to fall into a deep sleep, where the real benefits of rest occur.

J) Alcohol lowers testosterone production. Dammit. But only by a little bit … maybe. Studies like this one shows that moderate alcohol consumption doesn’t effect testosterone at all and studies like this one show that alcohol increases testosterone production. Going with the worst possible outcome though, this study found that if you were to have three drinks every night your testosterone production would go down by less than 7%. This is, however, totally irrelevant. Considering the amount that your testosterone goes up if you’re eating and training properly, as per the Bony to Beastly way, this really won’t affect too much of anything, and certainly not noticeably. To put this into perspective, by eating a diet conducive to testosterone production, Tim Ferriss (bestselling author) was able to increase his testosterone production by almost 300%. So you’d be much much much better off going to the gym, doing a full body workout with heavy weights, coming home to a hearty meal, and then heading out and having a few drinks with your friends than you would be if you spent the night at home worrying. Even more so because worrying also lowers testosterone production. Plus, If you down 10 beers in a binge drinking spree though, you’ve got a 23% reduction in testosterone that lasts for 16 hours. (study) Could be better, could be worse.

K) Alcohol probably won’t affect your ability to synthesize protein. The protein synthesis rumours you may have heard stem from studies done on rats, but the studies on humans have been finding, well, nothing. There aren’t any. In some hardcore alcoholics their ability to synthesize protein is diminished, but this has to do with a condition (chronic alcoholic myopathy) that sometimes comes along with the alcoholism, not the alcohol itself. (study) So we really don’t know what happens to protein synthesis when a healthy dude is a moderate drinker. The reason I say that it probably won’t affect your ability to synthesize protein is that this study looked into the body composition of alcoholics and found that they preserved muscle mass just fine regardless of how long they’d been alcoholics and how much alcohol they’d been consuming. If you wound up with chronic alcoholic myopathy that would change, of course, but that’s irrelevant for your non-alcoholic drinker, who obviously wouldn’t have it. So, presumably, you could have a couple drinks every day for decades and your muscle would be just fine, indicating that your ability to synthesize protein would also be just fine. (Admittedly this is an assumption.)

L) While the overall body of evidence currently indicates that moderate alcohol consumption likely comes with a lot of perks, alcoholism comes with a plethora of negative side-effects (especially when combined with smoking). I’m not addressing alcoholism here because I feel that goes without saying. Alcoholics are riddled with heart disease, health problems and higher rates of cancer. Abstainers though, surprisingly, have the next highest mortality rate. Moderate drinkers have been proven time and time again to live the longest (study, study, study, study), which is admittedly a little peculiar, since the mechanisms behind the supposed head benefits of alcohol aren’t well understood yet (although this study sheds some light on that). If you stick within light to moderate alcohol consumption (1-3 drinks per day) then you probably have nothing to worry about and can potentially collect on a bunch of health benefits, including a stronger immune system, a decreased chance of getting the common cold, Alzheimer’s, dementia, metabolic syndrome, cancer, arthritis, heart disease, and depression. (study, study, study, study, study, study, study, study) The absolute healthiest amount to drink is one drink per day, and the negative effects start to come after about 3.5 drinks per day.

Moderation for the Win (The Inverted-U Curve)

Alcohol is a beautiful example of something called an inverted-U curve (the curve that looks like a hill). The inverted-U curve describes situations where total abstinence produces minimal results (and more would be a lot better), a slight intake produces modest results (and more would be a little bit better), a moderate intake produces optimal results, a slightly heavier intake produces okay results (and a little bit less would be a little bit better), and a high intake is back to producing minimal results (less would be a lot better).

This is so true with alcohol consumption that when Malcolm Gladwell describes the inverted-U curve in his latest book, David and Goliath*, he uses alcohol to illustrate the point:

“A classic inverted-U curve can be seen in the relationship between alcohol consumption and health. If you go from not drinking at all to drinking one glass of wine a week, you’ll live longer. And if you drink two glasses a week, you’ll live a little bit longer, and three glasses a little bit longer still – all the way up to about seven glasses a week. (These numbers are for men, not women.) That’s the upslope: the more, the merrier. Then there’s the stretch from, say, seven to fourteen glasses of wine a week. You’re not helping yourself by drinking more in that range. But you’re not particularly hurting yourself either. That’s the middle part of the curve. Finally, there’s the right side of the curve: the downslope. That’s when you get past fourteen glasses of wine a week and drinking more starts to leave you with a shorter life. Alcohol is not inherently good or bad or neutral. It starts out good, becomes neutral, and ends up bad.”

*Surprisingly fitting book to quote, considering David and Goliath is about the naturally skinny guy using his intelligence and training to gain the advantage over the naturally enormous guy.

So… if I’m not an alcoholic do I need to worry about alcohol making me skinny-fat?

No. (study, study) What all this means is that if you go out drinking you don’t need to worry about losing your hard earned muscle or adding fat to your frame…. unless you’re also doing nutritionally dumb things while drinking your alcohol. You may tend towards doing one of these three things:

1) Not getting in your daily nutritional needs to build muscle because you’ve filled up on beer and skipped 3 meals. This will limit your muscle growth, but has more to do with your habits surrounding alcohol than the alcohol itself. Eat like a bear and your problems disappear.

2) Ordering drinks that are full of sugar. I won’t call you a sissy, but I will remind you that since alcohol reduces fat oxidation, all of that sugar heads straight towards your belly. Luckily, once you develop a healthy lifestyle you’ll find that you don’t crave tons of sugar, and your taste in ultra-sweet alcoholic drinks will likely disappear.

3) Drinking a ton of alcohol and then eating processed fat-person food, because alcohol has left you hungry and stripped you of your inhibitions against eating junk. With my small stomach and appetite this was never a problem for me, but I’ve seen many a friend build a belly this way.

So if you drink stereotypically masculine drinks and eat like a beast all your problems are solved? Almost. Red wine, whiskey, scotch, tequila, vodka, rum and gin pretty much only have calories from alcohol in them, meaning they’re pretty solid choices. I got lucky here, because my three favourites are on the golden list: red wine, whiskey and tequila. This presents a problem for most guys though, since beer has carbohydrates in it. You could order light beer, which has fewer carbs, but who wants to be drinking light beer? Not me.

At this point I want to point out that even if alcohol were bad for muscle growth, there’s always room for moderation in any diet, no matter how strict. This applies to beer, and, as much as it pains me to say this, this even applies to cupcakes. The problem is that three beers turn into 10, and one cupcake every couple days turns into 2 cupcakes every day. If you keep 90% of your diet “clean”, then you can still achieve near-maximal results. The difference between 90% and 100% compliance is very negligible. When the occasional indulgence becomes a daily habit though you start to notice your fitness goals sprinting off into the distance while you’re left bony and gasping for breath. A couple beers is nothing to stress over though, especially since if this is a regular part of your lifestyle you also get all of the benefits, like increased insulin sensitivity. So while you may regularly be consuming a few carbs at a bad time, you’ll also be improving your body’s ability to build muscle and lose fat.

A lot of you reading this article are probably at a point in your life where you’re willing to temporarily make dietary sacrifices in order to rapidly achieve an incredible physique, strength and health transformation. I’m testing the Bony to Beastly program right now, up 21 lean pounds in 10 weeks, and at exactly that point in my life. Sometimes I’m willing to forego moderation in exchange for accomplishing what I want to accomplish more quickly. I still drink though.

Here’s a good way to drink while still rapidly accomplishing ludicrous goals:

1. Fat Loss: If you’re going to be drinking a fair amount and want to lose fat while doing it, simply avoid fats and carbs. This includes several hours before you start drinking, as your body takes a long time to process food. Your pre-pre-drink meal should thus be really really high in protein. While you’re drinking you’ll be taking in calories in the form of alcohol—and that’s okay. After you finish drinking have another protein filled meal: greek yogurt, chicken, lean meat, low fat cottage cheese, etc. If you’re only having a drink or two a night I wouldn’t worry about it, and the net effect will likely be positive. In this study they gave one group 150 calories of wine each day and the other 150 calories of grape juice. The wine drinkers came out leaner. Not by much (1kg leaner than the other group after 3 months of dieting) … but still leaner.

Studies have found a similar effect with beer. Isohumulones, which come from the female hop plant, are what give beer its bitter taste. They also give beer the (slight) ability to stimulate brown fat tissue, which resulted in a statistically significant reduction in visceral fat—the unhealthy kind of fat that surrounds our organs (study). So, surprisingly, beer has a compound in it that can actively combat beer bellies? Who knew!

2. For Muscle Gain: Have a couple/few drinks and enjoy. Similar to #1, protein is the top nutrient you’ll want to be consuming surrounding your drinking to minimize fat gain, but I wouldn’t stress about it. It’s important to make sure that you keep up your large intake of beastly foods in order to fuel muscle growth of course, but this doesn’t really have anything to do with alcohol unless you really take your drinking to excess.

3. For long-term health and a badass beastly lifestyle: Have a drink or two most nights. Beer, wine, whiskey—whatever. Kick back, relax, unwind. The alcohol comes with several long-term health benefits and will have a positive effect on your ability to build muscle and dodge fat. In addition to that, if you enjoy your alcohol while hanging out with friends, reading a book, or unwinding however you like to unwind you also get all the health benefits of relaxing.

Now if your goal is simply to look better, alcohol can definitely help, even in the short term. Simply give some to your lady and she’ll find you more handsome in no time!

125 Comments

This all sounds really good. What ‘med studies’ went into supporting the claims pertaining to the biochemistry? My understanding of ethanol metabolization is different, so it would be great if you cited those.

I’m telling you one thing. This article is bad and wrong, you drink alcohol your body is deshidrating , you need water to keep your body hydrate. So here is a bs, sorry but really this article makes people confuse :(. So if you drink alcohol drink double water of the amount of alcohol.

Flo, you’re correct that alcohol is a diurectic. But, add water of 20 times its volume and you get beer which actually rehydrates you. 1 litre of beer ultimately gives you 500ml of water. Hear-say / mis-representation of facts is wrong and leads to the confusion you have!

That was extremely informative. I’m about to start a training cycle and love to drink so when I found this gold mine of a no-fluff article I was really impressed. Bookmarked immediately. You guys are doing great things. A buddy of mine always wondered how after some drinking nights he would have better abs than not, and I just related some of this to another buddy who’s trying to lose a few lbs. Good stuff man!

That’s awesome man, glad you liked the article! Ahaha yeah some guys drink on purpose the night before to appear leaner and more vascular the next day. A couple glasses of wine does a pretty good job of it 😉

Well, yeah, the thing about appearing leaner after a night of drinking is only due to the dehydrating effect of alcohol. You lose some water and appear leaner. And as any shortcut, it’s temporary and I assume far from healthy. So take it from a broader perspective (inspiration from Woody Harrelson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Gm0TbSENw included . )

Great article mate. I have 2 or 3 beers a night and have been doing so for years. I’m 34 years old and weigh 78kg with an 82 cm waist. I always eat healthy and work out in some form most days. Great to see an article written with a different slant – am sick of all the doom and gloom articles re alcohol consumption!

Hi… nice read… nd especially relaxing for guy like me who loves his rum as well as his career as an actor where he needs to look super fit…. I want to know wat exactly is da measure of one drink u r refering to… is it 30ml or 60ml? Also , I wud like to mention dat j hav had several phasss in my life being an abstainer modrt drinker nd also an abuser….. dese phases cum in cycles… physique wise also I keep changing from fat to slim to super lean to fat…. depending on da lifestyle m undergoing at dat particular point of time…. ryt now m n abstainer nd pushing it hard to burn it out… ur article was quite inspiring …. its just dat aftr about a cupl of weeks of drinking regularly da intoxication threshold shoots up and I cant resist but increase da intake level…. goes upto 7 to 9 60ml pegs everyday….. workout n diet goes fr a toss… fats appear…. goes on till sum time in a daze…. one fine day da trance breaks nd I get into complete abstinance for months nd try to get bak in shape working out like an animal….. after reading ur article I soo feel like keeping it in modrtn nd enjoy both ends of life simultaneosly…. however cud u guide me as to the trick of feeling da buzz nd enjoying keeping myself restricted to a certain nmbr of drinks fr da rest of my life?

Thank you for an intelligent and down to earth article written from a perspective of being a normal healthy person. I am so tired of all the mind-controlled freaks out there telling people how to live without really knowing very much!

Obviously what you write is based on your experience as well as some education. I learned some useful things. Now I wish someone could do the same for a short, aged lady who has put on stubborn weight and loves a few beers a night ( They really help me to relax and sleep) I think I know the answer and it means quite a lot of exercise and attention to diet.

This article is just what people want to hear . That’s why I don’t trust it . Just like that friend you don’t like , they eventually start saying bull shit you wan to hear and you’re friends again. This is a Desperate plea for ratings and pseudo science to gain the trust of the lower self. I don’t drink to get buzzed or drunk because I know the body doesn’t want it and it inhibits muscle growth just like Tylenol or Advil does. Part of the bodies way of getting stronger is feeling sore so it knows what’s up . IE signaling muscle repair and sends nutrients to that area to rebuild. By drinking you really do inhibit that and it fucks up your immune system . ALCOHOL is a social thing and it’s ingrained in all cultures. You can still be social and not wreck your body , we only have so much time in this earthly vessel so I’ll take the safe route and save my liver and my body .

Hey Joe, thanks for asking for it! That point (k) was actually pretty poorly worded and somewhat arrogant on my part, and what I should have said is that there ISN’T a study showing that the two are in any way related – that it’s a leap to think that alcohol would impair protein synthesis. The absence of evidence, however, obviously doesn’t indicate the evidence of absence … so I shouldn’t have made the claim with so much certainty.

I’ve adjusted it to sound less certain, and also tossed in a study to support the conclusion I drew.

“This article is just what people want to hear . That’s why I don’t trust it .” “ALCOHOL is a social thing and it’s ingrained in all cultures. You can still be social and not wreck your body , we only have so much time in this earthly vessel so I’ll take the safe route and save my liver and my body ” .Im sorry to hear this, (naturally high) in order to distrust this, clearly you are well educated in the history of alcohol )in moderation) 1) not much time is this earthly vessel? well that would depend on the individuals belief system, 2) alcohol is a social thing? actually the monks created certain drinks but the ancients made it for the medicinal effects it has on the body, it is also a good pain killer and helped clean wounds in the past, in fact, alcohol is in a lot of modern medicines and drops. 3) yes it will wreck your body as will most things like pollution, smoking and taking pills for pain…..if abused.

Its nice that you feel your life is wonderful without all these things, great for you , but everyone is different, and far be it for you to ridicule the rest of the world, and remember some of these red wine drinkers hearts will still be healthy beating maybe long after yours as stopped (scientifically proven)

You are so grossly misinformed. 1) Alcohol is IMMEDIATELY converted to simple sugar after it reacts with our saliva, which unless you put it to anaerobic use, is immediately stored as fat. 2) Alcohol flushes our glycogen stores from our liver, where we get our energy. Drink just a beer or two before any strenuous exercise. 3) Alcohol DOES impair protein synthesis because it blocks the pathway required for the uptake by dehydrating the muscle cells. There actually are more scientifically proven reasons why. Do the research.

Aren’t there other things to consider than one’s physique? Ok, let’s say that alcohol does not make you fat or skinny. But what does it do to other parts of your body? What about people who are concerned with their blood triglycerides or overall heart health? Surely you don’t refute all the science about those potential risks. . .

Are you talking about the potential risks that come with binge drinking and alcoholism? We definitely wouldn’t refute those risks – that’s not good for you at all!

If you’ve got any studies/research/etc showing that a couple drinks per day has negative effects send ’em our way. We’re not trying to put up a one-sided piece here, and we’ll gladly include any studies that show the downsides as well as the upsides!

That’d certainly be the best way to come to an informed decision 🙂

Hehehe we’re not die hard alcohol drinkers or anything (I think I’ve seen Marco have one drink ever) and, hell, I’d probably give it up personally (without any qualms at all) if I found out it was significantly bad for me in the long run.

So far more of what I’m seeing seems to point towards moderate alcohol consumption between somewhere between totally insignificant and mildly beneficial.

This study shows that smokers are especially at risk for cancer if they consume lots of alcohol. Drinking seems to be fine up until about 4 drinks per day. Much beyond that and the risk seems to go up.

Looking into some other forms of cancer, the risk seems to be low, even among alcoholics (which is a little surprising):

The vast majorities of the studies I’m finding are showing the positive effects of drinking.

I can’t find a single one showing any downsides to moderate drinking combined with an otherwise healthy lifestyle. Even when combined with an unhealthy lifestyle (like heavy smoking / not eating any vegetables) alcohol only seems to factor in if it’s taken to extremes.

Your liver has to convert the alcohol you drink into acetate and then the acetate becomes your body’s main source of energy so instead of burning off ugly fat for energy…

Acetate is now used meaning you do not burn any fat and…

One study has already showed your body’s ability to burn fat decreases up to 73% for a few hours after having a couple of drinks and other studies say drinking more than a couple of drinks can lower your fat burning ability for up to 4 days.

All I know is I’ve drank my whole life and I work my ass off doing physical labor I eat like a beast and im as healthy as an ox and wouldn’t you know I’m 29 and I creasing my muscle . I try not drinking but find that muscles and joints are more fatigued. Here’s to your health and hard work!! U do eat foods high in antioxidants . I climb and play sport run and have four kids. I seem to only get in better shape! Now do consider I have a fast metabolism but staying active from mind to bady takes the cake.

Well, Shane… I just want to say I think your article is LOVELY! You backed it up with plenty of ‘study information’. I really like how you handled some of the responses.. he he. Some people must not of actually read what you wrote being that you had to repeat yourself in following posts! I recently started reading your articles and I look forward to the up coming! Also, what more proof do you need when the results of the ‘experiment/study’ are right in front of you….You drink moderately, workout, and lead a healthy life style. Did they not see your picture… Some of my friends and I are the same way and we are Healthy and Fit! Hell… Maybe, later I will post a comment arguing with you about something you really did not even say! heh

We’ve got four articles for women already written up and they’re saweeet. Just waiting to finish up the http://www.bonytobombshell.com blog so that we’ve got a platform to publish ’em from. Stay tuned!

We’re also posting a new Bony to Beastly article tomorrow, so stay tuned for that too.

Traditionally the French eat a lot of rich food including high fat cheeses and a fairly high alcohol consumption and have very little heart disease. If you have ever been in France, nearly everyone is skinny. Or at least they were last time I was there. It has been a few years aand EEC. regulations may have messed up the quality of their food too.

American food is a mess unless you seek out food produced organically by healthy means.

People on natural traditional diets have mainly consumed alcohol and been fine so long as their lives are fairly well balanced and they don’t have alcoholic tendencies.

Most of these people here are not old. I am a nutritionist(among other things) and pretty into the science of food values. Wholefoods are best but if you knew about commercial food production you would probably be a lot more in favour of organic and a bit freaked out about commercial.

I am ooften broke and my income fluctuates a lot but I make sure that me and my pets consume organic as much as possible. Or at least the better produced foods.

Chicken, eggs, fruit and veg. nearly all organic Meat. Beef I cannot alwys afford organic but I eat it for the protein.

When you consume commercial produce you are eating irradiated chemically saturated food that has no minerals. It’s true that young people appear wuite well on this food generally but it is also a fact that by midlife many have had various organs removed and cancer is 100 times more prevelant than it was 120 years ago.

I know some of that can be put down to environmental pollution generally. However what we ingest is the biggest culprit.

If you habitually eat organic produce you will be turned off by the other kind. In the long run it does make a difference but you wont find that acknowleged too much in any popular media including most of the internet. People are not being told the truth about food.

Hmm, are you talking about factory farms versus family farms, local vs imported, or organic versus conventional?

Organic can be from a factory farm and loaded full of just as much pesticides as conventionally grown foods. Similarly, conventionally grown foods can be farmed by small local farmers who use minimal pesticides.

Organic just means non-GMO and no synthetic pesticides and herbicides. It has nothing to do with commercial/non-commercial, corporate or non-corporate, pesticides or no pesticides, etc.

I don’t disagree with you, but to be labeled “organic food by law has to be grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides and not be geneically engineered. It also cannot be irradiated. It still is normally produced in a commercial operation but I was usung the word “commercial” to indicate food produced the way it is produced in mass production farms. I could go into detail but I won’t.

People generally still don’t know what they are eating and what it does to their bodies. The damage from eating food produced the way most people’s food is grown may take a long time to show up but it does sooner or later.

You are not stupid and I think you take care of your health quite well. We can get away with a certain amount of non perfect foods in our diet, especially if other factors are in our favour, such as healthy relationships, occupations and a generally rewarding lifestyle.

I am not in favor of being rigid about things. I just wish people knew more about the environment they are living in.

Shane Duquetteon October 18, 2013 at 2:25 pm

“We can get away with a certain amount of non perfect foods in our diet, especially if other factors are in our favour, such as healthy relationships, occupations and a generally rewarding lifestyle.”

So, so true! Could not agree more.

“I am not in favor of being rigid about things.”

Agreed. I think you need to know enough to take care of the fundamentals – the stuff that makes the difference – but beyond that, striving for total perfection is often counterproductive.

We seem to agree on the end goal, just perhaps not some of the much finer details about how to get there 😉

Shane Duquetteon October 16, 2013 at 11:50 pm

Living longer and a better understanding of the human body are also culprits when it comes to the increasing rates of cancer!

Cancer happens to a lot of us in old age. Now that so many of us are reaching old age, more of us are dying of cancer. (We used to die out younger from a variety of other causes, like plagues, “consumption”, infections, etc.)

We all need to die of something, and these days we’re a lot better at diagnosing the cause of death. So a lot of deaths are now attributed to cancer whereas before they were mysteries. The cause of death in humans often heart disease or cancer, and, assuming we’ve lived 80-90 years … that’s not so bad!

I don’t disagree though. If we can reduce our chances of getting cancer then that would of course imply that we could live even longer!

Once you remove death in infancy, childbirth and from septacemea people actually lived as long or longer than they do now on average. You can research this if you like. But apart from those things they were healthier than modern people.

Also I don’t know if you haven people with inoperable cancer but in many cases it appears on the outside of the body.

100-120 years ago cancer was not being misdiagnosed. Ever. They had doctors, x-rays and everything needed to detect it. It was not very common.

A whole medeaivel village in England was recently dug up. The skeletons had no tooth decay, no arthritis, were better formed and most of them were of old people. Organic food, fresh air and plenty of activity obviously had benefits. All waste was returned to the fields. They used manure and crop rotation. Their bodies were not starved of minerals.

You may not know this but they may have drunk beer and not water as much water was not safe at those times.

The things you are saying about health and longevity are what most people say. It is possible to read up on it and find out the truth if you are interested.

Shane Duquetteon October 18, 2013 at 2:21 pm

Yeah! I’ve heard that same argument from the Paleo community – that even many thousands of years ago humans were able to live quite long lives. I’ve never looked into it. Really interesting.

Whatever reason people died younger, that would still reduce the rate of old-age diseases, no? From what I can gather my understanding is that we’ve gotten a lot better at recognizing and treating cancer. That’s a whole other topic though, and admittedly one I know very little about.

As for non-organic food being the source of all these troubles, I just don’t think we can make that claim. They’ve been around for several decades now and the studies aren’t finding any problems! (Keep in mind these studies are funded by government organizations from around the world, anti-GMO organizations, pro-GMO organizations, WHO, etc. We’re not talking about just partisan Monsanto studies or anything.)

Crop rotation, staying away from mono-cultures, and some other traditional farming practices are great. They’re practiced by organic and non-organic farms. (Although I know those practices are more common with organic foods.)

Organic foods run into problems of their own, too. Their pesticides and herbicides, like rotenone, are more often more toxic than the non-organic ones. They run into more toxic contamination issues too, since they’re often less strictly regulated. They also run into the downsides of using manure – bacterial issues (E. Coli, etc.)

That isn’t to say that organic is bad – far from it. I love organic food and eat tons of it. You make a valid point that they’re a little higher in some nutrients sometimes too. That’s a fairly negligible difference though, I’d say (it seems, based on the current evidence).

I suspect that the problem our generation faces has more to do with more inactivity + slightly more calories + more processed foods. (Fresh air may play a role too – I don’t know.)

That’s a tough issue though. It’s very hard to say for sure, and many people dedicate their entire careers to figuring that out and still haven’t reached a consensus.

Just because most people say something doesn’t mean it’s wrong! 😉

Monica B.on October 17, 2013 at 3:12 pm

Super pumped for the women’s articles. I have just flat lined at the weight and size I am at the moment. At this long moment…. I am a certified Muay Thai Kickboxing/Kickboxing instructor and working toward a self-defense/combative certification AND I am starting my personal trainer certificate. I am always up and running. In ways that activity has been a benefit and a huge speed bump. Instead of just taking the protein I was advised to take I recently started experimenting with protein, carb., and fat intake for my body. Something not so extreme. I sure in the hell had a hard time trying to fit in so many meals per day. It is discouraging. I have been stuck at 113 lbs. for years.

Sooo…reading your articles lit that under your ass fire back up (the motivational under your ass fire not the food poisoning one)! I hope the women’s articles help! I am shooting for the gain again. Instead of working to just maintain.

Yes to the calorie consuming. Also for the metabolism boost and health benefits of fresh veggies and fruit. I did not want to have to take a bunch of supplements to get all those vitamins, minerals, protein, etc…They are not big meals. Just hard to squeeze it all in! Some say 5-6 meals is the correct amount and others disagree. Sooo…I am at a loss!? Thoughts? I will for sure check out the beta test.

Well it’s a myth that you need to eat frequently for metabolism boosts or anything like that.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t any pros or cons – for a lot of us thin guys ‘n gals it makes more sense to eat more frequently simply because we find our stomachs are rather small. We thus handle snacks and small meals well.

So, I drink 1-3 glasses of wine every night, workout 5 days a week, and eat mostly organic/Paleo. I took a quiz online that said only 4% of women drink more than me and that I better think seriously about seeking professional help for my drinking “problem.” Yet, according to your article, I would be at the top of the U-curve. Is an average of two glasses of wine with food at night really grounds for needing “professional help”?

Sadly your ‘ideal’ intake would indeed likely be fewer than 7-14, yeah, since it sounds like you’re a woman.

You’d be on the slight downward slope though, not flirting with alcoholism, so I suspect your average of 1-3 is better than abstinence, just not better than one drink per day.

Although who’s really to say – different people handle different things differently. I love my grains, legumes and dairy, but some people feel best eating more Paleo. Some people adore how coffee makes them feel, others get all jittery and anxious.

If you enjoy drinking the wine and wake up in the morning feeling great my guess would be that you’re okay 🙂

Thanks, Shane. I really appreciate reading your view about personalizing the diet, and that not being a teetotaler is perfectly normal. A lot of those puritanical articles out there are without sound science and create unnecessary self-doubt. Maybe it’s time to re-read The Drunk Diet!

I did a 90 day no alcohol challenge and was very proud of myself for doing that. In about 100 days i have changed my health style completely and dropped from 26% body fat to 18.2% and now this weekend i would like to go out and drink and have some fun. I was worried about setting myself back a couple of days, even though what i drink is vodka and water. I liked the article because it made me feel like i wouldn’t set myself back that much, if at all. Some other comments kinda made me feel like it would. OHHH the decisions to make. 🙂

That’s super impressive Mandie, congratulations! 18.2 percent body fat is crazy low as a woman. (That’s like being 6% body fat as a man.) Do you enjoy it?

As far as what will set you back and what won’t, just remember to focus on the big picture!

A couple drinks one won’t matter at all. A couple drinks every day, in the context of a healthy lifestyle, won’t even matter.

I wouldn’t stress too much, and instead try and lead a healthy and enjoyable lifestyle. You can do that equally well as a drinker or a non-drinker, so I’d just go with your personal preferences and what makes you feel your best.

Thank you!!! I love it but I actually thought I’d be much leaner. Don’t get me wrong, I am lean and seeing major differences and more definition. I still have that stubborn cellulite on my legs and some love handles 🙂 but thank you for your insite I appreciate it!

Your cellulite has to do with your fascia. Fascia is a layer of fibrous tissue that surrounds muscle groups and fat. It holds things in place. It’s sort of like a net.

Different people have different densities of fascia. Some fascia is like fishnet stockings – big gaps. Some is like regular stockings – very tiny gaps. This is genetic, and men tend to have much denser fascia than women.

Cellulite is what happens when fat presses up against loose fascia – it sort of bubbles out of the gaps. It’s rare among men, because their fascia is dense, but very very common in women, since theirs often isn’t. Something like 90% of women have cellulite.

Cellulite is more apparent when you have more fat, since more fat is pressing up against the fascia … but you can’t really change the density of your fascia so, considering that you can’t ever get to 0% body fat, you may always have a certain degree of cellulite.

The good news though is that cellulite doesn’t really matter. I know some women don’t like having it, so I totally get why you want to get rid of it, but it’s not at all unhealthy and it’s not even remotely unattractive (at least as far as us men are concerned). It’s kind of just how women’s bodies are, and (straight) men, well, we tend to love women’s bodies for how they are.

It’s also common to be surprised at how lean you aren’t. I feel the same. I’ve got abs under any lighting and my body fat percentage is quite low, but I’m not even remotely close to being as lean as someone on the cover of a magazine. They intentionally peak before photo shoots, venturing very very temporarily into lower body fat percentages than aren’t maintainable (or healthy), they temporarily dehydrate themselves to make themselves appear even leaner than they are, and then the photos are made even crisper with photo editing tools. Since we’re often so accustomed to seeing images like that, and things are always rather relative, it’s pretty damn near impossible to ever look crazy lean in the mirror. Even the people on the covers don’t look anything close to that in the mirror!

Luckily, unless you’re a fitness model or bodybuilding enthusiast, that isn’t necessary or even ideal. 20% as a women is very lean, often very healthy (everyone does best at a different body fat percentage) and within the range of what’s generally considered totally optimally attractive (19-25% or so for most women in the eyes of most men). It’s similar to how 8% looks on a man – at the lean side of maximally attractive and maximally attractive. (With the maximally attractive range for men being something like 8-12%.)

You can continue to get leaner of course, if you like – we all have different goals – just be careful about letting it affect your health, mood and sex drive!

(I would say the same to a man looking to go much under 8%. We usually feel and look our best at 8-12%, depending on our genetics and preferences, so it’s not without its downsides! Naturally lean people often feel best closer to 8, whereas naturally chubbier guys feel best closer to 12, and sometimes even higher. Maintaining a lower body fat percentage than that often makes us feel weaker, crushes our sex drive and results in perpetual and insatiable hunger.)

Wow it’s never really been explained like that to me. I appreciate you taking the time to do so!!! At this point in time I’m the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been. As for the sex drive lol lets not even go there! So I will continue to do as I am until it affects those areas 🙂 thanks again!

BadToTheBoneon December 9, 2013 at 5:07 am

Alcohol Impairs fat oxidation, but fat oxidation does not mean fat burning. Get your facts straight. In addition, alcohol actually improves insulin sensitivity, which is an advantage for someone who wants to lose fat or build muscle.

Oh yeah, go ahead and become alcoholics you dumb fucks. Way to go. I was really impressed by this website up until I found this article. Now I’m very disappointed. People nowadays will find an excuse in anything to get drunk and flood their body with poison, seems you are no different then. Too bad. I certainly won’t pay money for some program made by people who recommend me to use DRUGS, which alcohol CERTAINLY is. Why not invest in STEROIDS instead of beer? Will help you alot more in getting jacked;)

Well this article put me at ease. I figured a lot of the anti alcohol was bro science. Hell my little brother trains hard, eats clean and drinks like a fish (tried to get him to stop) and he is a beast. I shant worry about my two beers a week any longer.

“I) You may wonder why alcohol makes you sleepy, and then oversleep, and then remain tired the next day. This is due to the release of the inhibitor gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which makes it easier to fall asleep, but harder to fall into a deep sleep, where the real benefits of rest occur.”

Is it the GABA that makes it hard to fall into a deep sleep or the alcohol that produced it?

I think this is just semantics. Isn’t that like asking “is it the protein that caused the muscle protein synthesis, or the amino acids that our body broke the protein down into that caused the muscle protein synthesis?”

My understanding is that the alcohol causes the release of the GABA and the GABA makes it harder for your body to fall into a deep sleep.

GABA is a neurotransmitter responsible for the sensation of emotions such as anxiety, there is a correlation between anxiety disorders and an overabundance of GABA. This could explain why I feel anxious the next day if I have a few drinks without eating. Not to mention this could explain how those more susceptible to anxiety (as I am) would potentially be more vulnerable to the negative effects of alcohol.

Additionally alcohol is a depressant which slows/disrupts the circadian rhythms in your brain/body – this could potentially disrupt the release of hormones (e.g. human growth hormone, testoterone), neurotransmitters, and as has been mentioned elsewhere, disrupts cycles of stage 3 & 4 deep sleep and REM sleep. Deep sleep is when most tissue repair occurs in the body and if this is disrupted it will inhibit gains. Sleep disruption can also cause the body to retain more weight – studies have found weight gain in sleep deprived rodents and male adults. So in the long term it may actually ruin those abs.

Also it’s extremely hard to determine causality from studies which have found abstainers to have shorter lifespans. This is because it’s a correlation (or association). It can’t be proved that ‘abstaining from alcohol’ causes a ‘reduction in lifespan’ because there could be any number of mediating variables (unseen factors which work in between these two variables). For example it may be possible that people with weaker immune systems (or underlying health problems which shorten their lifespan) are less likely to drink alcohol, because alcohol would cause even more problems to their health. So in this case it may appear that abstaining shortens lifespan,however people who abstain may have shorter lifespans/vulnerabilities to start with.

I’ve also personally found that moderate alcohol intake suppresses my immune response – so many times I’ve got ill with colds a day or two after drinking. Once I had a slight sore throat, went out for a few drinks (not a lot) and the next day woke up with full blown tonsillar absesses. Had to go to the hospital for a week as I couldn’t eat/drink,my throat needed draining with needle, and I had to be placed on an IV.

I would suggest that past 1-2 drinks per day you’re potentially setting yourself up for addiction, negative mood, immunosuppression and poor tissue repair in the body. However I would suggest that many peer reviewed articles (including the studies I’ve mentioned) may have methodological issues and their results may not have been replicated in other studies. Not to mention the many studies which find non-significant results (e.g. those which find that alcohol doesn’t improve metabolism), are likely to not be deemed interesting enough for publication. This leads to a bias in medical/psychological journals, where significant results are published to the exclusion of non-significant results. Long story short, even peer-reviewed studies need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

I think the potential risks of drinking outweigh the benefits so I’ll only drink once in a while. I think everyone should strive to be uninhibited party animals without needing alcohol! I thought your article was interesting though and I love the b2b program!

Thank you for the really insightful and thoughtful comment! Super interesting stuff about the anxiety. That makes so much sense.

Some people definitely handle alcohol better than others, and if you notice that it harms you more than it helps, then it’s indeed probably best that you limit it quite a bit. And I definitely agree with you that drinking in excess, especially rather late at night, can radically reduce the quality of your sleep. It seems like the best time to drink is in the evening before/during dinner, and the best quantity, while it varies with everyone, is a drink or three—not five.

As wonderful an idea as it might seem at the time, ordering up a few shots at last call is a sure way to sleep very poorly hehe. And you’re so so right about the importance of sleep 🙂

Glad you dug the article, and the program!! Thank you again for the comment!

Excellent article! Very intelligently writen. I do not notice any impact on my size since i’ve starded drinking 2 drinks a day in the last year or so… quite the opposite. Also started being Vegan at around the same time with ”lower than recommended” protein intake at around 70-100g a day (for a 6’3” 235 pound man) with still no difference in size except for less fat and more muscle. All that money wasted on protein supplement in the years before that… 🙁 Most ”common knowlege” in bodybuilding is BS. Cheers.

When you grow accustomed to weightlifting and consuming a higher protein intake it’s been theorized that the body becomes more efficient at processing protein, and we need to consume less. Moreover, there’s a big difference between what’s required to maintain muscle mass versus what’s required to build muscle mass. For someone who’s new to building muscle, who is looking to gain muscle instead of just maintain, who’s looking for rapid results instead of steady progress, etc… most studies conclude that they’d do better on a higher protein intake.

Considering these articles the title “why you should drink” is misleading.

Also I suggest to define a maximal recommended amount on a daily basis and not like you did as 7-14 drinks a week. This could be interpreted as drinking 14 drinks a day and then no alcohol for the rest of the week. 14 drinks a day would clearly account for binge drinking whose detrimental effects on health, especially brain functioning, are well established.

The first study you linked to agreed with the consensus that there’s a slight protective effect of drinking when it comes to heart disease, although they point out that it may be exaggerated (although still true). They’re arguing that we shouldn’t treat alcohol like a supplement or miracle drug, and I agree. The second article (although I haven’t read the whole thing) seems to conclude that there’s likely a protective effect of alcohol, but that’s it’s too soon to know for sure. That seems prudent to me, and lines up with the tone we were trying to have in this article.

You make a good point, and I’m going to keep seeing what comes out in the coming months/years to see if the body of evidence starts to suggest something different.

You’re right—the “Why You Should Drink” title is a little misleading. I wasn’t so much trying to say that you should drink, but rather here are some reasons why you would want to. I think the content of the article clears up the ambiguity though, no? I could definitely add a bit in to make it clearer.

And yes, binge drinking is bad news. We say that very clearly though! Could make it clearer, yeah.

(And this stuff is always something to discuss with your doc, not just go with verbatim based on internet advice.)

Why moderate drinking appears to be beneficial (from the second study I sourced) “Overall, 90% of risk factors were significantly more common among nondrinkers; only 2 risk factors were more common among moderate drinkers. Furthermore, among factors with multiple risk categories, higher levels of risk (e.g., the highest BMI category) were progressively more strongly associated with nondrinking status. The findings were similar before and after adjusting for age and gender, and after excluding those with poor health or a history of CVD from the analysis. These results suggest that residual confounding or unmeasured effect modification would bias observational studies in favor of moderate drinkers.”

Why it might be dangerous to promote drinking in order to get health benefits which can be achieved through other means. (Moderation is key but might no be as easily realized because of the addictive properties of alcohol, peer pressure and possibly other factors) “Alcohol, which damages virtually every organ system, claims more than 80,000 lives each year in the United States alone, and is responsible for about one-third of all fatal car crashes, half of all homicides, one-third of all suicides and one-third of all hospital admissions.”http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7323/full/468475a.html

Some people don’t handle moderation well, and for many people who are prone to alcoholism, abstinence is best. No argument there. However, in general restriction causes people to fetishize things, making moderation less likely if they succumb to temptation. If you were to restrict sugar, say, then you may find yourself craving it, and then when you DO have it, it’s nearly impossible not to binge on it. This phenomenon has been confirmed by many studies (study). I don’t think we can necessarily generalize and say that the best way to avoid binge drinking is avoid drinking altogether. Especially since many people aren’t inclined to binge drink or become alcoholics anyway. I think this likely depends on the person.

For many, the best way to develop a healthy relationship with alcohol may to be to learn to have it in moderation, not to abstain.

Furthermore, if abstaining from alcohol is correlated with all of these risk factors… it’s hard to figure out what the causal factor is here. Why do the moderate drinkers have so many fewer risk factors? Is it possible that having a healthy relationship with alcohol (neither being scared of it nor drinking too much of it) is helpful in some way? Perhaps learning to drink in moderation fosters better self control or something (as the above study suggests), or perhaps better self control fosters better drinking habits (as logic would suggest. Perhaps both. Regardless, there doesn’t seem to be much of a problem with drinking in moderation.

A lot of those awful things you’re mentioning about alcohol come from excessive consumption. I mean, people who eat too much food run the risk of becoming morbidly obese and dying from it. That doesn’t mean that consuming food is bad for you, but rather that consuming excessive amounts of food is bad for you. The same may be true with alcohol, and you’ll surely get no argument from anyone that consuming too much alcohol is a bad thing.

(I don’t have access to the full version of that drug analysis study you posted.)

I found this study which supports your claim about the cardioprotective properties of “moderate” alcohol consumption. However their definition of “moderate” differs from yours.

Furthermore the mean age of the study population (Table 1) is 50y. I can’t find any restrictions of your cardioprotective claims in terms of age.

I also found this study which is allegedly a study of good quality. However the authors restricted their analysis to health care professionals. (A non-representative socio-economic group with respect to the whole population.) “In this study, we focused on a tightly restricted group of participants, that is, nonsmoking male health professional.” Additionally one of the authors (Eric Rimm) received funding “from industry-related organizations (Distilled Spirits Council and National Beer Wholesalers Association). He is also author of several other studies relating to the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. Again the study populations mean age is 50y. (Table 1)

Another recent (2010) article from Nature concludes that “Our data suggest that it is clearly premature to promote alcohol consumption as the basis of CV protection until such time as the causal role of alcohol in cardioprotection is fully proven.” (the mean age here is 40y)

Causal factors cannot be inferred by using epidemiological study design. What is needed is a randomized control trial.

Shane Duquetteon October 8, 2014 at 2:50 pm

Check this study out, which includes some experimental studies. It also talks about possible mechanisms for why alcohol is improving markers of health—super fascinating!

Shane Duquetteon October 8, 2014 at 3:03 pm

The definition of moderate consumption in the study you link to doesn’t really differ from ours. They’re saying that drinking around one-ish (okay—ever so slightly less) drink per day is better for your heart health than drinking less than one per week, however increasing consumption of alcohol up to 2 drinks per day starts to become associated with a greater risk of heart disease. That lines up well with the 1-drink-per-day findings of the other studies I’ve come across. It’s not exactly the same, but very similar.(The main difference being that instead of 1-3 being the ideal zone, it’s 0.75-1.5 or some such.)

Anyway, I’ve changed the article to include more “seems” and “currently” and “perhaps”. And I double checked to make sure that we weren’t recommending that people take up alcohol consumption for supposed health benefits and whatnot, although that study up above indicates that for older guys… going from a non-drinking to a moderate drinker may indeed improve heart health! (But I haven’t yet come across a doctor recommending alcohol as a way of preventing disease.)

Mikeon October 8, 2014 at 3:15 am

The latest study using mendelian randomization and a very large sample size

Shane Duquetteon October 8, 2014 at 2:40 pm

The findings of that study may be accurate, but the study itself likely has some problems. They divided the groups up based on whether or not people had a rare allele that caused uncomfortable face flushing and poor alcohol processing. The problem is that while they’re trying to remove confounders, the allele may actually be related to cardiovascular disease (CVD), so it’s hard to figure out if the effects are due to a reduced alcohol intake or due to something else. Critiques of the study point out that the allele itself may have an effect on CVD.

There are other similar studies looking into other alleles that are associated with reduced alcohol consumption. This one questioning all the studies that found improved cognitive function in people who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol.

The challenge with these studies is that, while they attempt to remove confounding variables by focusing on genetic variations that naturally restrict alcohol consumption, they may not actually do a very good job of it. In the above study, the researchers noted that it only explained 3% of the variance in alcohol intake… which doesn’t do a very good job of categorizing people into non-drinkers and moderate drinkers in an un-biased fashion. The same may be true in the cardiovascular disease study—I don’t know.

The very weird thing about this study is that there’s a large body of evidence (including clinical trials!) finding a positive correlation between HDL (aka “good cholesterol”) and moderate alcohol consumption… while this study found none. Without the positive HDL being taken into consideration, which is the supposed benefit of drinking in the first place, it would follow that there’d be no benefit. As such, the allele may be a poor way to divide up participants.

Anyway, the main critique of the study is that it’s overreaching in its conclusions. It may be right, it may not be. But it’s way too early to say with any degree of certainty!

(It wouldn’t surprise me though. It’s indeed largely unexplained why moderate alcohol consumption seems to be good for our health. It may turn out that it isn’t!)

Most experts still feel that overall body of evidence—including studies like this one—indicates that light/moderate alcohol consumption is cardioprotective. I think we should wait and see though.

Shane Duquetteon October 9, 2014 at 6:52 pm

Also, thank you for passing along all this research! This has me more intrigued than ever 🙂

Hey Mike, we didn’t delete it, it just wasn’t automatically approved because it contained a bunch of links. Normally comments with a bunch of links are spam, so our system automatically flags them for manual approval. That’s why this comment was cleared immediately, while the other one got held up for a bit. In your case, you’re a like-minded evidence-based dude, so we’ve approved it 🙂

I was actually having a beer while reading this article, and I love it! But since you’re actually advocation alcohol consumption while on a diet that kinda goes without saying haha. Anyways, it may need be exactly on topic but since de-/hydration was mentioned in the comments, any word on using creatine while keeping your liver busy? I’ve heared it time and time again that alcohol and creatine don’t mix too well. That is, alcohol neglects any positive effect creatine may have, not that you should actually mix them. Cheers

I’m not advocating alcohol consumption per se, just saying there’s no need to fear it, feel guilty about it, or feel like it would sabotage your results 🙂

I wouldn’t think that alcohol would neglect the effects of creatine, but I definitely see what you’re saying—alcohol is dehydrating you and creatine is increasing your need for water. However if you’re talking about having a beer or two the dehydration would be very very minimal. And if you’re taking just 5g of creatine per day—not doing any kind of crazy loading phase I mean—then the effects would be so mild that I can’t imagine it being a problem. I think beer, what with all the fluid in it in relation to the alcohol, isn’t even very dehydrating.

I imagine it would be wise to consume plenty of water though, aiming for several clear urinations per day (alongside however many dark-ish ones) to guarantee that you aren’t dehydrated.

And I should add that I’m mostly just guessing here. This is probably a question for your doc!

Shane – excellent article. I have always been a regular drinker (socially) but I have always loved my sport and exercise kinda goes hand in hand. I did an experiment on myself whilst I was working in Dubai (3 years) I gave up drinking but just ate what I wanted and did both resistance anaerobic exercise on a daily basis – I lost a little weight but I was kind of fat/skinny – remember no alcohol. Ok I got back to the UK and started tennis again but some body weight exercise but dramatically cut down on eating and again no alcohol – guess what lost weight but kinda fat/skinny. So started my new job recently (social opportunities) started drinking shots of vodka but changed my diet to lean proteins, vegetables and fruit and plenty of water and boosted my resistance training – and guess what – in the best shape of my life with significant gains and improvements all the time – just goes to prove if you get every thing else right you can have a regular drink … no problem.

That’s a very good point! The healthiest way to consume alcohol seems to be a couple drinks drinks with dinner. Early enough and moderate enough that it doesn’t interfere with sleep at all. Drinking a lot and/or right before bed would definitely mess up your sleep (which is incredibly important)!

Ahh this article and some of the comments explains SO much about my recent weight gain and why my abs looked better when I went from near abstinence to ~6 drinks/week (all consumed in one night, but still). I couldn’t understand why I still felt and looked healthy when alcohol is supposed to be this awful monster. Thank you so much for allaying my fears!

Hey Shane, I’m a Belgian student, 18 years old (in Belgium you can drink soft drinks like beer and wine from the age of 16). In Belgium we have a lot of great beers, and most of us like to drink them regularly 😉

I like to go out with friends. But I often tend to lose a few pounds the next day after drinking. The day of drinking I just eat normal, I’m bulking with 3200kcals right now. At night I go out and drink between 5-10 beers (mostly 7-8) in 4-5hours. This is between +/- 500-1100kcals. Mostly my friends and me don’t eat anything after this. The next day I always take a rest day from the gym and eat a bit less, mostly 2000-2500kcals. The second day I continue my normal bulking habits in terms of eating and training.

But how is it possible that I lose weight with all these calories, since losing 1kg takes 3500kcals? Mostly I lose between 2-4lbs and it takes me at least 3 days to get to my old weight. Is it from the dehydration? But is it possible that dehydration takes 3 days to ‘recover’?

I’m going to University in a few months, and I know that they go out a lot over there. So I’m a bit worried about gaining muscle if I go out every week. I know it’s definitely not optimal for gaining muscle but I want to enjoy the student life a bit too…

I know that 5-10 drinks at night isn’t very healthy (with 10 drinks only once per 2 months or so)… But most of my friends even drink between 10-15 beers every time…

It could be dehydration, yeah. It’s weird that it takes so long to come back, but it sounds like the drinking also affects your diet the next day. Eating less food the next day means less food hanging around in your gut, less sodium / water retention, perhaps less muscle glycogen, etc.

You may also be spending a lot more calories when drinking too. When I drink a lot I often dance a lot, walk a lot, stay out late, etc. I burn way way more calories than when I’m not drinking.

Another interesting thing is if you’re drinking just a couple beers, then it doesn’t much matter how they line up with your training. The beers will boost testosterone a little bit, but not enough to matter, and the alcohol in your system won’t be enough to hinder muscle protein synthesis at all. So it doesn’t really matter. However, if you’re drinking a LOT, then muscle protein synthesis will be greatly impeded. (Your body won’t be able to properly turn the protein you’re eating into muscle.) That’s not the end of the world, but it creates a really poor recovery situation for your training. Probably better to not train on the day that you drink, because your muscle recovery will be awful. Train the day after instead. Even though you might be tired/hungover and it might not be your best lifting session ever, at least you’ll be able to properly send your muscles the nutrients they need.

Much of this is true for women too, although with about half the quantity of alcohol it seems. Actually, I think writing a post like this specifically for women on our sister site, Bony to Bombshell, is a great idea 🙂

Im a 26yr old medical doctor from the subcontinent. I congratulate you all on gaining such an amount of muscle in a short period of time and giving your fellow ectomorphs (including me) hope (and the motivation for starting a healthy hobby).

It’s an impressive achievement that is worthy of appreciation.

I gained more than 2 kgs in a month (while properly maintaining neutral spine and neck ) by following a homemade gym routine (consisting of the basic 5 movements) after reading just your articles! I’ve improved my health, mood and posture and feel better now. I’m thinking about buying your program soon (I just wish it were CANADIAN dollars). The great thing about you, Jared and Marco are that you are hard working and dedicated. You provide evidence (in the form of trials and studies) and are polite and friendly (your articles are reader friendly and with your witty puns and examples added in, fun to read too).

But In this article you are definitely defending alcohol (ethanol). Now come on, Shane… Alcohol is a risky thing to drink.

PRACTICALLY few people can drink it in the ideal amount you have mentioned for optimal muscle hypertrophy and health. No doubt, it does have benefits but it’s harmful effects (on physical and mental health) definitely EXCEED them. In my country generally people teetotal (abstinence from alcohol is a religious obligation here). But unfortunately there is a lot of crime and disease due to poverty etc already and I am scared even to imagine if people had been freely drinking here too. Add road traffic accidents due to drunk driving and Alcoholic Liver Disease to the list and… that’ll make the routine very hectic for us doctors at least!

I think we can learn to live and enjoy WHILE ABSTAINING from drinking alcohol. It’s just that we don’t see alternatives or are just too reluctant/addicted to think of a world without beer, whisky, sake, rum, gin, vodka, tequila, champagne etc at our parties that we defend a curse such as that. What do you think?

If someone starts drinking alcohol thinking it’s healthy after reading this article and later becomes an addict (most of us do overdo, it’s human nature)… Well… at least my auntie won’t be proud of you for that.

There are people who drive drunk, and I think we can all agree that that is wrong. There are people who binge drink, and I think we can all agree that this is not a health-based decision. There are people who are susceptible to alcoholism, and those people may need to avoid drinking entirely. There are people who would need to go against their moral/religious beliefs to drink, and that is wrong.

This doesn’t mean that alcohol is bad for most people though.

Here in Canada alcohol is legally obtained from ethical sources, there’s no religious restriction on it, most people can drink it in moderation with no issues, and there’s no negative health impact from doing so. For these reasons I don’t see any reason to recommend that most people stay away from it.

When it comes to scary examples and anecdotes, I agree that they exist. Perhaps I should share a more positive one. I was raised in a family where my mum would come home from work after a long day at work and have a glass of wine before dinner. Over the years she has risen to the top of her profession, she’s been a fantastic and loving mother, and at nearly 60 years old she’s in absolutely perfect health. Her daily drinking doesn’t speak of indulgence, a lack of self control, or any kind of tradeoff—it’s just a nice pleasant, healthy way for her to relax. Her mother is 87, is also a wonderful and impressive person who drinks daily, and she is also in perfect health.

So I’ve seen first hand that drinking can fit well into a productive life. But am I reluctant to think about a world without alcohol? Not at all! Right now I’m on allergy meds (antihistamines) so alcohol makes me sleepy instead of merry. I don’t really drink right now and I don’t miss it at all!

I’m sure I could learn to live without coffee as well, but oh man that would be much harder… 😉

Thanks again for the wonderful comment, and there is indeed a lot of wisdom in what you’ve said. There are many people out there who should not be drinking for a myriad of reasons.

Shane, not many are lucky enough to be born to great mums (and in addition, great sisters that help their brothers do heavy weightlifting in the basement, I wish I had one like her 🙂 ).

Look, MOST people don’t have self control. Smoking helps people defecate in the toilet, keep warm and release anxiety. Some chronic chain smokers have been known to live more than a hundred years. Tobacco smoking and lung cancer are NOT 100% related. But a nicotine addict/chronic smoker wants exactly such excuses and loopholes to continue smoking (making his nonsmoker friends passively smoke too) and ignore the ton of the harmful effects smoking causes (bad breath and bad gums are bad enough ;). People who start smoking for the first time many a time start for gaining it’s benefits.

Get well soon, Shane. And if you don’t mind my asking, which allergies are you having?

For people who are prone to abuse alcohol we’re in total agreement. Plus, alcohol also lowers inhibitions, so if someone lacks self control and loves to drink in excess… having just one or two beers may not be realistic. So I agree with you in that case 100%.

However, for many though, alcohol isn’t so irresistible that it even takes much willpower to keep it under control. Many people are able to do a fine job of it. That’s who this article is for.

I don’t think the smoking comparison is a great one. Unlike with smokers, the average person who has a drink or two per day will love longer than someone who avoids drinking entirely.

[…] it does not hurt to pump yourself up a little before you go out. Here are some facts about the connection between drinking and muscle growth. And here are some hints for our female and our male readers for the right Friday night […]

Hey Shane, First off, I’m glad to see you respond to all of your comments. It’s a great thing for people to fully understand your articles.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on, say, dinking “a lot” (7-shots) the day after a workout? Won’t that inhibit muscle recovery?

I usually drink 7 or 8 shots on Fridays or Saturdays, once a week. I know you said 7-14 is the ideal amount a week on the inverted u curve, but is it different if these drinks are taken all at once on one day rather than spread out over the week? I would guess spreading it out is better but what do you think the effect is (of having it all at once?) Thanks

Drinking 7 shots after working out will definitely inhibit recovery and tank your testosterone for a little while. Much more than two drinks and the effects start to be negative. But I don’t think many people are binge drinking for the gainz 😉

Spreading it out is better, yeah. It can even be healthy that way. Is binge drinking a couple nights a week going to make it hard to build muscle? Maybe not. Depends how you handle the alcohol, whether you make good food choices while you drink, whether you get hungover, how well you train when hungover (if you do get hungover), etc. Still, not the greatest for your health or muscle… but it’s not an uncommon thing for young guys to do and you might be able to make it work!

I understand that protein synthesis is affected after drinking and muscles may not recover (increase) during the alcohol elimination process. But if I workout and then drink heavily that night, what happens the next day after the alcohol is gone? Will the body then continue to build muscle regularly from that workout (since the recovery process takes a few days) or is it ultimately stopped?

That’s a complicated question to answer and I have to admit that I don’t know. My guess would be that your growth would be stunted while binge drinking, then pick up again the next day. Would you come out ahead by the end of it? I don’t know. Might depend on wide variety of things—the severity of the drinking, how well you handle it as an individual, what you eat, how experienced of a lifter you are, etc.

Advocating ( “why you SHOULD drink” ) alcohol consumption on a site such as this is absolutely CRAZY and utterly irresponsible. Many turn to exercise and healthy eating as a means of resisting this insidious drug, to encourage its use on a site that ought to be dedicated to transforming people’s HEALTH as well as their ( far less important I might add ) concerns re physical aesthetics is BARKING MAD.

My advice to anyone of ANY age- if alcohol is a feature of your life and you’ve deluded yourself into believing that it is both necessary and beneficial, imagine yourself in 10 years time with a drink problem, anxiety, beer gut & long gone ‘gains’, no interest whatever in exercise, etc. “It won’t happen to me” you say? Sorry but as long as you take alcohol you are not in a position to make that prediction. It is an insidious drug that will do precisely NOTHING for your physical & emotional well being, so do yourself a favour & ditch it.

Hey DGM, not everyone handles alcohol well, but alcohol is something we’ve been drinking for thousands of years, and many people handle it very well. There are several ways in which it can be healthy when consumed in moderation (a drink or two per day), and demonizing it doesn’t make much sense.

Is it a good choice for people with a family history of alcohol abuse or for people with addictive tendencies? No. But that’s not everyone. That’s like saying food is bad because some people die of obesity. It’s really the dose and the overall attitude towards alcohol that determines whether it’s a positive or negative aspect of someone’s life.

Also keep in mind that “beer gut” is just an expression. Beer guts don’t actually have anything to do with beer, but rather a chronic surplus of calories.

Quick question Shane! I just finished bulking and have began cutting, I had 1-2 glasses of wine maybe 3 nights a week during my bulk without manipulating my diet! Wondering if I can do the same while cutting and not manipulate my fat/carb intake seeing that I’m still wanting to be beastly and lean?? I’m new to all of this and absolutely loved your article, saved me and my social life! Cheers!

That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. I think the optimal amount for women is more like 1 glass than 1–2 glasses, but that’s not a huge difference and everyone is a little different anyway. Sounds like a pretty reasonable, healthy lifestyle. Definitely won’t hinder your fat loss, just remember to drop overall calorie intake lower if you aren’t losing weight each week 🙂

I used to drink on a daily basis. I quit completely about a month ago, and I’ve already lost a noticeable amount of fat and my muscles consistently look fuller and I’ve gained strength. Drinking is simply not compatible with muscle growth.

Yep, that makes sense. That study has guys drinking twelve drinks after working out. In this article we’re saying you can have a beer or two after training without needing to stress about it. If you get totally smashed, yes, your gains will be impaired 😛

Ah, that study came out long after the article. There’s a lot of conflicting evidence on alcohol, and a number of things that seem both good and bad about it, and then the issue of all of the studies just being able to show correlation, not causation.

I think this is an interesting enough topic to update the article with all of the new evidence. We may just focus more on the muscle and body composition side of things, though—stick more to our true area of expertise.

Until these people become smart enough to post things in a way the average Joe can understand, I will take their results with a grain of salt. Are you sure they didn’t have lawyers write this up?

What I have been able to discern from this: 1) 550 people studied, which is a tiny amount compared to the total population of the earth. 2) They asked the people to tell them how much they drank, if they used drugs, etc. “none were “alcohol dependent” according to the CAGE screening questionnaire”(people tend to be liars about things that can make them look bad, so if that was the extent of their testing, it is suspect from the beginning) 3) 20% of males admitted to drinking more than one drink a day on average (How many lied about it?).

Things I couldn’t find: 1) Did these people drink on average one drink a day, or did they all drink all those drinks in one night out partying? 2) Were all these people in the same geographic area? There could be other issues in the area that could skew the test results, such a diet, etc. 3) “This study was over 30 years with the mean age of 45.” Was that 45 when the study started, or ended? I’m guessing they didn’t start with 15 year old kids. 4) “cognitive performance measured repeatedly over 30 years” Was that every week, every month, every year? 30 years is a long time and most people have some metal loss over that amount of time. It’s hard to factor this in because it can vary widely from person to person. 5) How much of an affect did this have on the daily lives of the people studied? Was it enough to actually affect their daily lives, or was it only something that could be measured with specific tests, but had no affect on their daily lives. 6) Who funded this study? This can have a huge affect on the results of studies due to bias (intentional or not).

There are numerous studies done in the fitness industry that are completely bogus because the studies only involved test that would show their product in a good light and discarded any tests that would show negative results. In fact, most doctors give really bad advice when it comes to fitness because they don’t exercise themselves. Just today I saw a video where a guy was told by his doctor he should lose weight because he was over the weight recommended for his height. If the doctor had working eyes, he should have noticed that the guy was in great shape with a low amount of body fat. To add to this, most doctors talk about good and bad cholesterol, which is a flat out lie. There is no such thing as good or bad cholesterol, there is only cholesterol and it is extremely important for your body (you would die without it).

There have been numerous studies done over the years that have been tainted by the bias of the researcher(s) or flawed study methods and this study seems to go against several other studies. There are also several comments by other doctors/scientist that call this study and it’s methods into question (although half of them are written in the same lawyer speak, so they are hard to understand).

I have seen a couple articles/videos recently (no I don’t have links, sorry.) talking about the state of scientific papers where a large number of them are written by “scientists” more interested in getting papers published than in making sure their papers are correct. There also seems to be a problem with the places publishing these papers doing enough (any?) checking to make sure the papers are correct.

Finally, money is involved in these studies and when money is involved greed is always a factor.

In case you cant tell, the more I learn about modern “science” and studies, the less likely I am to trust them without a lot of additional corroboration from other studies.

When I first heard that alcohol kills your gains, I was drinking about one beer at the end of the day (workout day or not) to help relax a few hours before bed time (and to help kill the effects of GAT Nitraflex pre-workout. That stuff will keep you awake all night!). When I heard about this I stopped buying beer for a little over a month. You know what happened? Nothing! I didn’t get stronger, I definitely didn’t sleep better and I was much more stressed out at the end of the day. So I started doing more research about this problem and I can’t really find any hard evidence of this being a real problem. Everything I find is someone telling everyone what they heard without citing any sources or real evidence. This is the only article I’ve come across so far and it seems to back up my personal experience, so thanks for that!

I feel ya, Sam. I love having a beer or two after finishing my work for the day. Helps me shift gears and switch into a more relaxed mood, and it’s a nice moment to chat with my wife about our day. It doesn’t seem to have any impact on physique whatsoever, so I don’t find the results of these studies surprising. Lines up with my personal experience as well 🙂

I would certainly not tell you that you can’t drink one or two beers a day. However I would (based on the studies I provided) not suggest to anyone to start drinking for health reasons, and neither would any healthcare professional.